An Evaluation of the Vietnamese Translated Version of “The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Ph.D. Phạm Thị Thanh Thùy Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract. It is undeniable that the assessment of translation is becoming of great important and receiving great concerns of many researchers. The more translations are published, the more necessary it is to control the quality of such works so that the readers can enjoy the best of the foreign literature work via its translation. For that reason, in this minor study, with a view to assess the quality of the translation of “The Call of the Wild”, the researcher utilizes the schema of Translation Quality Assessment proposed by New Mark. By this way, the researcher has found out that although the translation text has achieved a lot of success in conveying the author’s message, it still reveals some mismatches between the source text and the translated text. Noticeably, some sentences in translated version do not transfer enough message in the original text or the meaning occasionally changed. In addition, some vocabulary mistakes, printing mistakes and punctuation mistakes which may affect the conciseness of the translation are also pointed out. On the basis of such findings, some implications for literary translation are drawn. Keywords. Ngôn ngữ học; Tiếng Anh; Dịch thuật Content 1. Rational for the study Translation is an issue which attracts more and more attention from many people all over the world. Nowadays, in the inevitable trend of globalization and integration, not only the professional translators but also many people working in different fields such as health care, economy, politics, etc, are concerned about the quality of translation. However, in fact, to have a high-quality translation version, especially in the field of literature, is not an easy task and it involves a lot of skills from the translators. According to the translator Thuy Toan(1993), to have a good translation version, the translator must not only love his job and literature but also be good at their mother tongue, know foreign languages, have a thorough knowledge of culture, work cautiously and be industrious at consulting. From his point of view, it is clear that translation is a challenging job, which requires the translator both the knowledge of the language and the background knowledge of the culture which the literary works belongs to. Sometimes, due to lack of either of these or because of the translator’s carelessness, the translated version may not be concise enough. Even more seriously, it can transfer the wrong message that is attached in the literary works. At present, in Vietnam, works of literary translations are growing rapidly, even uncontrollably in quantity for commercial purposes ; however, there has been no popular criterion for a good and valuable translated version . Besides the successfully -translated masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights (Đi gi h ), Harry Porter, Noruwei no mori (Rư ̀ ng Nauy), The Centaur in the Garden (Con nhân ma ̃ ơ ̉ trong vươ ̀ n ), there still exists ones of bad quality, for example, the Vietnamese version of “The Da Vinci Code” (Mâ ̣ t ma ̃ Da Vinci ) by translator Đo Thu Ha (Van Hoa-Thong Tin Publisher ,2006). This translation receives a lot of criticism right from publication because of the mistakes that she should not have made in terms of vocabulary, grammar and descriptions. For this reason, the minor thesis would like to focus on the evaluation of one literary translation so that the readers can have better understanding of some models of translation quality assessment initiated by some famous linguists in the world like Nida and Taber, Peter Newmark, and J. House, etc. Within the limitation of the minor thesis, only some of these models will be introduced, and then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating the Vietnamese translated version of “The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese translators to point out both the strengths and weaknesses of translated texts in comparison with the original. Also, the author would like to investigate the prominent equivalence types the translator has achieved in translating this famous masterpiece so that other translators can get some experiences from them. 2. Objective of the study This thesis mainly aims at answering the three research questions:  How good is the Vietnamese version of “The Call of the Wild” according to Newmark’s model?  What are the weaknesses of the translated version?  What might be some lessons learned from the translation version? 3. Scope and method of the study 3.1 Scope of the study The masterpiece “The Call of the Wild” includes of seven chapters in total. Due to the limited time for this study, only Chapter Two of this short story will be chosen as the typical analysis of the success and the shortcomings of two translators in translating this masterpiece from English into Vietnamese. The title of this chapter is “The Law of Club and Fang” and the reason why this chapter is chosen is that the writer has had access to this chapter since she was a fourth year student. At that time, she had chances to learn about this chapter in the subject “English Literature”, which attracts her a lot. Moreover, this is a moving chapter about the process in which the dog adapts itself to the new harsh environment and rude owners. Therefore, the writer decides to make a comparison between the original version and the translated one to see whether the translators can transship both the connotative and denotative meaning of the source text into the target text or not. a. Method of the study The goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of the translated version of “The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong. To reach this goal, I decide to have an insight into various translation quality assessment models by different authors, among which Peter Newmark’s model is chosen as the main criteria for assessing the Vietnamese version of this masterpiece because of its strong points in terms of application, that is, it is easy to follow. During the assessing process, Contrastive Analysis approach will be applied to compare and evaluate the translated version against the original one. This assessing process will be carried out as follows. First, the original text will be read thoroughly and comprehensively, then the source text will be compared to its translation under the framework of NewMark’s TQA model. According to his model, there are five main steps towards TQA and the researcher is going to strictly follow them:  Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects  Step 2: the translator’s interpretation of the SL text’s purpose, his translation method and the translation’s likely readership  Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original in terms of both sematics and syntactics  Step 4: an evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator’s terms, (b) in the critic’s terms, (c) as a piece of writing, independently of its original.  Step 5: Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline. 4. Organization of the study The study contains three main parts: Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Development. This part includes two chapters: Chapter 1: Literature Review This part will discuss different basic aspects of translation, which is compulsory background knowledge for any translation assessor who wishes to evaluate the quality of translation, including definition of translation, translation methods and procedures, translation equivalence, and translation assessment. Chapter 2: Application of Newmark’s TQA model in evaluating Chapter Two of “The Call of the wild” In this chapter, Newmark’s five- step TQA model mentioned above will be applied in assessing the Vietnamese version of chapter 2 in the works “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London. Finally, part 3 will deal with the discussion of the results of this study and some conclusions will be drawn. The quality of the translation text including both translators’ strengths and weaknesses, which are based on the application of the model, will be discussed. Also, some implications and suggestions will be made for other translators, especially in the field of literature. References English 1. Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words. A Coursebook on Translation. Routledge - London and New York 2. Catford J. C. (1965), A Linguistic Theory of Translation: an Essay on Applied Linguistics, Oxford University Press, London. 3. Chesterman, A. (1989). Readings in Translation Theories. Finland: Oy Finn Lectura Ab. 4. Doctorow, E.L. "Introduction" in The Call of the Wild, White Fang & To Build a Fire. New York: Modern Library. 1998. ISBN 9780375752513 5. Hartman, R.R.K and F.C. Stock (1972), Dictionary of Language and Linguistics in Bell, R.T. (1991), Translation and Translating, Longman. 6. Hatim, B. and I. Mason (1997): The Translator as Communicator, London, Routledge. 7. House J. (1977), A Model for Translation Quality Assessment, Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen. 8. House J. 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B and Jo Enterprise Pte Ltd. 18. Nida, E. & C. Taber. (1964). The theory and practice of translation. Leiden, E.J. Brill. 19. Pizer, Donald. "Jack London: The Problem of Form." Studies In The Literary Imagination 16.2 (1983): 107-115. 21 Aug. 2012. 20. Vinay J.P. & Darbelnet J. (1965), “Stylistic compare du francais et de l’anglais”, in Newmark, P. (1988), A Textbook of Translation, Prentice Hall International. 21. Williams, M., (2009), Translation Quality Assessment, Mutatis Mutandis. Vol 2, No 1. 2009. pp. 3 – 23, University of Ottawa 22. Wilss W. (1982), The Science of Translation. Problems and Methods, Narr, Tübingen. Vietnamese 1. Lê Hùng Tiến, Đỗ Minh Hoàng, Nguyễn Phương Trà (2006), Lý thuyết và thực tiễn dịch thuật Anh-Việt: Một số vấn đề về lý luận và phương pháp cơ bản, Đề tài nghiên cứu cấp Đại học Quốc gia:Trường Đại Học Ngoại Ngữ - ĐHQG Hà Nội, Khoa Sau Đại học. 2. Thy Toàn, 1993, Về ngôn ngư ̃ trong di ̣ ch thơ , trong: “ Như ̃ ng vấn đề về ngôn ngư ̃ va ̀ dịch thuật”, Hô ̣ i ngôn ngư ̃ ho ̣ c Viê ̣ t Nam, Trươ ̀ ng Đa ̣ i Ho ̣ c Sư pha ̣ m Ngoa ̣ i ngư ̃ Ha ̀ Nô ̣ i. Websites 1. Dịch giả Thy Toàn “ Cần quan tâm hơn đến dịch thuật”. Retrieved on October 25 th , 2005 from http://evan.vnexpress.net/news/phe-binh/dich thuat/2005/10/3b9acafe/ 2. Mật mã Da Vinci, những bức xúc từ bản dịch Tiếng Việt. Retrieved on October 18 th, 2005 from http://tuoitre.vn/Van-hoa-Giai-tri/Van-hoc/103411/Mat-ma-Da-Vinci- nhung- buc-xuc-tu-ban-dich-tieng-Viet.html . then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating the Vietnamese translated version of The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese. An Evaluation of the Vietnamese Translated Version of The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền Trường. meaning of the source text into the target text or not. a. Method of the study The goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of the translated version of The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung